In My Daughter's Eyes
by KissTheBoy7
Summary: Angie has always been well aware that her Uncle Toni was of no relation to either of her parents. Mark Cohen's rocky love life and complicated family situation as seen through his daughter's eyes. Too Many Marks AU. Mentioned Antoneil and Marker. Oneshot. Happy one year Elizabeth! I got impatient and uploaded it early!


**A/N: ELIZABETHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I've only known you for a year? Impossible! But I wrote Antoneil and yeah um yeah. Hopefully of the happy variety. I included the child. So I mean. It has to be at least slightly lighthearted, eh? :3 Look at me being an honorary Canadian. Anyways! I really really really really really hope you like it! I love ju!**

Disclaimer: _RENT isn't mine but I can claim _some_ ownership of this weird AU we've got going on…_

**In My Daughter's Eyes**

Angie has always been well aware that her Uncle Toni was of no relation to either of her parents. It was just a given- _he_ was just a given. All through her childhood, blood relation or not, he had been a constant presence, floating in and out of the loft as if by magic. She never once heard him come in through the front door, or leave, but it just didn't seem to matter.

He was her uncle whether or not he was actually her uncle and no one was going to tell her otherwise.

Not that anyone would dare, not even Daddy Roger who, whenever he was forced into the same room, didn't seem fond of Uncle Toni at all. She wondered all through her childhood what could possibly have bred such animosity.

By now, of course, she already knew. It hadn't taken her long to figure it out.

Angie was an intuitive child, an inventive child, even growing up in the "poisonous environment" that she had- and when she wanted something, particularly knowledge, it was only a matter of time before she got her sneaky little hands on it.

And her fathers both knew that.

For example: a lot of people might say that it was wrong to teach your child the correct names for their anatomy. They're _children_, they're _innocent_, and there's no good reason for them to know a nasty word like "vagina".

But the moment she was old enough to talk, to babble off an endless stream of questions, Daddy Roger had sat her down and explained to her exactly what it was she had, and what it meant in the future.

She had been the only girl in her class to have already been given the period talk when she turned nine; she had also been the only girl in the class without a mother. It had completely baffled her teacher, whom she had a sneaking suspicion was some kind of homophobe- another of those words that she shouldn't know but did, anyways, and loathed with all of her nine-year-old passion.

So it was easy to believe that, at the age of five, she had begun to notice things- little things that she probably wasn't supposed to- about her Uncle Toni.

Uncle Toni wasn't like Daddy Mark or Daddy Roger. He was something else entirely, _came_ from somewhere else entirely. He was just different. And that was definitely a good thing. He was shorter than both of her fathers, with blonde hair that was sometimes red and sometimes a little of both, and glasses exactly like Daddy Mark's. In fact, his eyes were the exact same shade of blue. Sometimes he even wore the same clothes as Daddy Mark. If she had believed that Uncle Toni was _really_ related to her, of course she would have assumed that it was on Daddy Mark's side- but it wasn't.

She didn't know how she knew. There weren't any obvious clues, and signs painted on their foreheads, but she _knew _as she always had that Daddy Mark was in love with two people at once. To a child, this doesn't seem odd at all; to Angie, it seems great. Why love one person when you could love two, or three? Jealousy, of course, was the only concern she could think of- but to a nine-year-old with no experience, no concept of an adult relationship, it doesn't seem so harsh, so painful.

Love was a simple thing to her. Love, she had been taught, can exist between anyone- between mommies and daddies, or daddies and daddies, or mommies and mommies. It could exist between boys and girls and girls and boys and between friends and between couples. You could love your pets and your classmates and even your teachers. You could love your uncles and aunts, your favorite blanket, and even all of the other people in the world that you've never met.

So, she reasoned, what was the issue? She certainly loved more than one person. She loved both of her Daddies and she loves her Uncle Toni. Loving and being in love aren't separate in her mind yet, and she doesn't see why they should be.

And if you couldn't love two people at once, then she would never have had her Uncle Toni. So even if Daddy Roger doesn't like him very much, and pouts when he visits, she's glad that Daddy Mark has a big enough heart to go around.

The more love you have, the happier you'll be. Right?

So why does Daddy Mark cry at night? Why does Daddy Roger yell at him when he comes home late? Why is there so much tension sometimes that they all have to walk on eggshells, because any misstep could set off a shouting match, a crying session, a breakdown for all of them to see? If love made you happy and her Daddy had so much of it, then why was he sad?

She sees them kissing sometimes. Holding hands, nuzzling each other with such affection that it's impossible not to see the connection. They don't bother to hide it, not well enough to fool anyone- especially not an intuitive little girl.

Angie may be nine but she's not _stupid-_ and while she may not understand why anyone would want to put their tongue in someone else's' mouth she sure understands that it's done and it's apparently pleasant, and Uncle Toni and Daddy Mark do it an awful lot when they think that she's asleep or playing in her room.

Sometimes they do other things. Personally, she thinks they're icky; she watched once and she never will again, that much is for sure.

But the fact remains. Love is love is love and there sure is a lot of it in her house.

Sometimes Angie wonders how all of this is going to pan out, but at nine she's an optimist- a trait that Daddy Roger says she inherited from her mother, whom she's only seen pictures of, with that sad smile that she can only interpret as "missing." And as an optimist, she's obligated to imagine only the best possible outcome.

If love is good and it makes people happy, then she has to have faith that someday it will. Maybe, like with God, you have to come into your happiness. You have to wait and be strong and someday, it will come to you. Daddy Mark is sad now, but down the road that only means that he'll be even happier than anyone else, because he's suffered and he deserves it.

At least, she thinks so. And there's nothing so powerful as a child's faith.

Nobody is perfect. Daddy Roger smokes; Daddy Mark is sad. Even Uncle Toni is always forgetting things, always pacing about and biting his nails. But Angie knows that all three of them will find happiness in the end. How could they not? In her world, there's no such thing as tragedy.

Nobody is perfect- but in the eyes of a child, it just doesn't matter.

Every_thing_ is perfect, and that's enough.


End file.
